Children of the Dust (4 page)

And it was one more temper tantrum for Sarah to deal with, one more irrational incident to add to the madness of yesterday. 'Why doesn't he understand?' Veronica said desperately. But William would never understand.

He roamed through the darkness, aimless and aggravating, a five-year-old child dependent on sounds to keep him interested, and the sounds alone were enough to drive anyone demented. He lifted the bucket handle and let it clatter back into place, over and over again, until Sarah shouted at him to stop it. Then he made chimes with the begonia stick on the fireside companion set, a metallic music as the tongs and brush, poker and shovel, rattled and clanged. Sarah removed them and stowed them in the corner with the rest of the junk. After that William played with the switches on the television, changing channels with loud irritating clicks, ignoring Sarah when she asked him not to, waiting for his mother. And the reaction came, the same as yesterday.

'I'm going to kill you in a minute!' Veronica screamed. 'I'll smash your head against the wall! Leave that flaming television alone!'

William retreated to the armchair, drummed his heels against the side. He talked about dinner, whined and grizzled, wanted a packet of crisps, wanted ginger cake and Mars bars and an orange ice-lolly. Everything Veronica could not give him William wanted and demanded to know why he could not have them. Deprivation was something he had never known before and Veronica had always been his main source of supply. He refused to accept that what she had always given him she could give him no longer. In a fit of rage he broke up Catherine's Barbie doll furniture and hurled it into the blind dark space where Veronica sat.

'You buy me a Mars bar, Mummy!' William shouted. Nobody expected Veronica to cry but she cried then, long broken sobs that racked her body, a human sound of absolute despair. William was shocked into silence and Catherine, who had been screaming at him for breaking her Barbie doll furniture, was silent too. Sarah groped her way towards the settee, feeling the debris of Lego bricks, not knowing what to do or say. She touched Veronica's leg, her hand, her shoulder. Put her arms around the older woman she had
never loved.

'Don't cry,' said Sarah. 'Don't cry, Veronica. William didn't mean it. He didn't mean to hurt you. He's only a little boy and he doesn't understand.'

'Oh God!' Veronica wept. 'I can't go on like this. I just can't. It's not only William. It's everything. All of us trapped in this hell hole of a room. I can't stand it! I just can't stand it any longer!'

'It's only for another eight or nine days,' Sarah said consolingly.

'You haven't been outside!' Veronica sobbed. 'You don't know what it's like. Everything's dying. There's no way we'll be able to stay alive. Nothing to hope for. No future for any of us. I should have listened to you. I should have gone to the chemist's and got some pills.'

'No,' said Sarah. 'There's William and Catherine, remember? We can't give up, Veronica. We've got to think about them, do everything we can to help them stay alive.'

'I can't!' said Veronica. 'I can't go on! I can't even try! It's pointless, Sarah. Completely pointless!'

Sarah stood up.

It had to be her. She would have to take on the responsibility Veronica had abandoned. Their lives in her hands. It was a huge undertaking but she could feel the strength inside her like a great welling of power. She was not alone. In the hushed darkness around her she could feel a presence, sense the eternal being of which she was a part. She knew it was all for a purpose, that she had to go on. Something in the future was dependent on her. And although she might die, something or someone would survive because of her, and God Himself would give her courage.

After Veronica broke down William behaved better. Through the long dark hours he played with Catherine and the Lego bricks, children's voices talking quietly together. Veronica said nothing more. She seemed to be withdrawn inside herself, sunk into a kind of torpor, not knowing or caring what went on. Sarah reheated the stew and William ate it without complaint. But Veronica lay on the sofa, refusing to eat or drink. All she had had all day was a cup of black coffee. It was as if she had lost the will to live and Sarah was afraid to press her.

She put the saucepan to soak in the bucket of filthy water and wiped the plates clean with crumpled newspaper. The fireplace was full of rubbish . . . biscuit wrappings, tissues, and the empty cornflake packet. Candlelight flickered and a match flared brightly as she bent to set it on fire.

It was then that Sarah noticed . . . there was dust in the hearth, grey dust falling like soot, silent and deadly. She blew out the match and switched on the torch, shone it around the room. The dust was everywhere, on all the surfaces, floating like scum on the bucket of drinking water. 'Is is safe?' Catherine had asked, as if she had suspected it was not. And the dust was inside them now, in herself and William and Veronica, inside their gullets and being absorbed. They had guarded against fall-out as the radio announcer had instructed, but they had forgotten to block up the chimney which was open to the sky.

'Veronica!' Sarah said urgently. 'This water's contaminated!'

Veronica raised her head.

Dead eyes stared at Sarah, uncomprehendingly. Sarah ran her finger along the mantelpiece. And thrust it under her nose. 'Dust!' said Sarah. 'Look at it!' Veronica stared. Her blue eyes flickered. And she understood.

'Where's it coming from?' she asked in alarm. 'Down the chimney,' Sarah told her. I'll find something to block it up. We're going to have to clean this room. We'll have to wash everything with disinfectant, and we'll need some more drinking water. You'll have to go and get some. The hot water tap should be all right as it's a closed-in cylinder . . . and I'll need the Bex Bissell brush and carpet shampoo.'

Veronica stood up. Suddenly her face displayed purpose. And her voice was calm and controlled. 'Go under the table, William,' she said. 'And stay under there until I've fetched the things we need.'

'I want to help,' said William.

'You can help when I come back,' Veronica said.

'Will I have to help too?' Catherine asked worriedly.

'I think we can manage,' said Sarah.

'But there might be dust in my house! And I breathed it when I came out! Am I going to die now?'

'I shouldn't think so,' Sarah said.

The grandfather clock struck nine before they finished. The day's candle had burned away and Sarah had lit another. The room smelled sweeter . . . disinfectant, furniture polish and carpet shampoo, stronger than the stink of human excrement and stale stew. William had washed the bookcase. The food tins were polished and shiny and the junk was gone from the corner behind the chair. Even the soiled clothes and the dining chairs Veronica had taken outside and dumped in the garage. And she said Buster seemed a little brighter. He had drunk all his water and eaten the meat from his dish, unless it were rats. Veronica had seen the rats gnawing at the body of a dead sheep, and she carried a poker when she went outside to empty the commode.

Sarah used new lengths of sticky tape to reseal the door and William filled a beaker with fresh water from the bucket. Candlelight flickered, showing the fireplace empty of rubbish, her father's old duffle coat stuffed up the chimney, and twinkling reflections on the blank television screen. Darkness was bearable with the candle burning and Sarah was reluctant to blow it out.

'Leave it,' said Veronica. 'Let's play cards.'

'Oh yes!' said William. 'Strip-jack-naked!'

'And I want to play!' shouted Catherine.

'We don't have any cards,' said Sarah.

Veronica produced a pack from her apron pocket. She had been through the front door and fetched them from the study. They sat on cushions on the dampened carpet and played until after midnight. Nobody argued. Nobody said anything hateful — not even William when Catherine won. But William did grow tired and hungry. All he wanted, he said, was a dish of dog biscuits before he went to bed.

They did not have dog biscuits. They had a feast. Veronica sliced potatoes very thinly into the frying pan and when they were cooked she stirred in a pinch of dried herbs and four beaten eggs. Afterwards they had cocoa made with powdered milk and two squares of chocolate each which Veronica had been hiding.

'That was yummy,' said Catherine. 

'Yummy Mummy! Yummy Mummy!' William chanted. 

'How about cleaning your teeth?' Sarah suggested. 

'We don't need to,' said Catherine. 'Because there aren't any dentists now and we won't ever have to go again.'

'Which is all the more reason to clean your teeth,' said Sarah. 'Because if they go bad you'll have to have them pulled out with the pliers.'

Catherine cleaned her teeth like she had never cleaned them before, and William fell asleep in the chair with his clothes on. The stub of the candle guttered and died as Veronica strip-washed over a bowl of cold water. Sarah lay in the darkness. She heard human sounds that no longer embarrassed her, Catherine's deep breathing, and the creak of the settee as Veronica settled for the night.

'That was two extra candles and four eggs,' said Sarah. 

'I think we needed it,' Veronica replied. 

'Are you feeling better?'

'I'm sorry about today,' Veronica said. 'Sorry about yesterday too. I had no right to withdraw and leave you to cope. It was selfish, I see that now. Do you really think we can survive?'

'I think Catherine will,' Sarah said confidently.

'Why Catherine?' Veronica asked.

'It's as if she knows,' said Sarah. 'As if she has an instinct. Right from the beginning she wouldn't drink that water, not even when I mixed it with milk powder. She had to have hers from the container. And she hardly comes out from under the table except to go to the toilet. She's managed to avoid contamination and she hasn't been exposed to the dust. I think we have to forget about ourselves and concentrate on her.'

Veronica thought for a moment.

'If we die, how will she survive then?'

Sarah struggled to find the words.

'I don't know. I suppose we just have to trust. This is how things are meant to be and we're part of a plan. We don't need to see the reason and we can't question it, because the reason's out there, beyond us, with whatever it is that knows. We just do what we're supposed to do and make sure Catherine survives. All we are are fragments of some bigger meaning.'

'You're talking about God,' Veronica said quietly.

And maybe Sarah
was
talking about God.

For in the end people turned to Him.

Sarah sat up and listened. Something had woken her. And it came again ... a rifle shot in the distance. She waited but heard nothing else. It was twenty past eight by her watch and she could have gone back to sleep, but instead she dressed and lit the candle. They had been wrong to put off starting the days, sleeping late and hoping it would soon be over. They needed to get back to a regular routine, the diurnal rhythm of waking and sleeping. Her body clock said it was morning, and her stomach said it was breakfast time. She allowed just enough milk powder to flavour the water and opened the last packet of cereal. Then she set the kettle on the camping stove to boil and made her announcement. 

'It's time to get up!' 

'I'm up already,' Catherine replied. 

'What's the time?' Veronica muttered. 

'Time to get up,' Sarah repeated firmly. She shook William awake. He was tired and irritable, refusing to wash his face when she told him to, refusing to eat Shredded Wheat. Shredded Wheat was horrible, he said, and he wanted cornflakes. And when Veronica discovered it was only half past eight she was irritable too. Sarah tried to explain. They needed to discipline themselves to avoid going crazy, and anyway she had heard shooting.

'And I did,' said Catherine. 'It was up on the hill at Harrowgate Farm. A person with a gun.'

'Farmer Arkright's got a gun,' William said darkly. 'He showed it to me and Robert Spencer. He said he used it for shooting rabbits and little boys who trespass on his land. I didn't like him. He was horrible.'

But it might not have been trespassers Farmer Arkright was shooting. It might have been something else. There were eggs, and chickens, and milk cows on Harrowgate Farm. If Farmer Arkright had shot a cow he might give them meat, said Sarah. It would be contaminated but they could still eat it and let Catherine have the tins.

'You're suggesting I should go there?' Veronica asked.

'We can't live on potatoes,' said Sarah.

'I'll take the car,' Veronica said.

'You could drive to the village and get me a Mars bar,' said William.

'I'd like my own little torch,' Catherine said wistfully.

'The ironmonger's mightn't be looted,' said Sarah. 'We could do with more candles and another bottle of camping gas. And if we had some clear polythene we could cover the kitchen window and expand our living quarters.' 

'Make a list,' Veronica said.

They tore the fly leaf from the Bible, which was the only book Veronica had not thrown out. They listed everything they thought might be available . . . from the chemist, and the ironmonger, the village supermarket and Harrowgate Farm. It was best to go now, Sarah reasoned, whilst the dust was still falling and people remained in their houses. If they waited until the end of the fortnight there would be nothing left. There might be nothing left anyway, but it gave William something to dream about.

'Don't forget my tins of Coke and Mars bars!' William shouted as Sarah closed the door and resealed it with sticky tape. 'And don't forget my beefburgers and fish fingers, neither!'

Sarah listened to the rustle of Veronica's garbage bag steps across the kitchen floor, the rattle of the safety chain and Buster's soft miserable whine. Veronica talked to him sadly, words muffled by walls, and a few minutes later they heard her drive away.

'I hope she remembers my beefburgers,' William said anxiously.

Sarah blew out the candle.

'There won't be any,' Catherine stated. 'You can't have beefburgers without electric'